the worst news my three year old son ever heard (yet)

The other morning, I stepped into a conversation that for my son may have been the worst news he has ever heard (at least yet in his life).

Grey:  maybe when I'm big, I can make you dinner with mashed potatoes, sausage, and eggies
Me:  Okay, me and Daddy can come to your house and eat it
Grey:  what house?
Me:  when you grow up and get big you'll get your own house to live in
Grey:  are you just kidding?
Me:  hahha, no.
Grey:  will Gemmi come with me?
Me:  ummm..if you want, she can.
Grey:  No, you're kidding.
Me:  hahha, it's not for a very long time, honey.
Grey:  I don't want another house.  I love our house and our family!
Me:  we love you, baby!  it's okay Grey, you'll see, someday when you're big you'll want your own house, and you can make spaghetti every night for dinner if you want and never make your bed!
Grey:  No, Mum.  Please stop talking about this.

Dear Grey,
Don't think I'm not going to remind you of this when you're 17.
Because I definitely am.
I love you forever,
even when you get big and get your own house,
Mum

the two sleeps

I want to take a moment to apologize to anyone who has seen me in the last few days, because I honestly cannot stop discussing the two sleeps.  It's a phenomenon that has now taken over my mind and I keep trying to bring it up in random conversations.  So if you've already heard me talking about it, please feel free to move right along.  I've become a woman obsessed - HAH.

So, the two sleeps.
A few weeks ago, I read this article (but there are lots of other articles that mention it too) and I was intrigued.  At the time of reading, we hadn't quite made it to Daylight Savings Time (DST) yet, but I was still interested in at least considering the Two Sleeps - ya know, just for a go at it.

Cut to actual DST and our family quickly fell into the category of people highly negatively effected by the lack of daylight in the late afternoon.  (Momentary shout-out to my sweet friend Shelly in Alaska who has so much less daylight then me every single day.  You are a real life hero of mine.  I'm not exaggerating).  We are really good at some things as a family- lack of sunlight during the day is not one of them.  We are the kind of a family that announces every single afternoon, 'Can you believe it's dark already?' like we have never lived with DST before.  Surprisingly, just a day into DST, the kids got readjusted to the time change; alas, we - the parents - did not.

In the days following DST, I was putting Gemma to bed and either passing out asleep on her floor or barely making it to the couch downstairs before falling into a deep slumber...AT 9pm.  Brandon was operating similarly and we'd both wake up in a disgruntled state mid-night and berate ourselves for our lack of productivity.  At the time of sundown, which is now around 6pm, we as a family can successfully accomplish these things:  making and eating dinner, dressing children for bed, putting children to bed.  That's it.  It's like the sun goes down and our battery life depletes at an alarming rate.

After a few frustrating nights, I randomly recalled the two sleeps article and had an epiphany.  My body was already sort of trying to attempt the two sleeps, as I was regularly waking up mid-sleep to go upstairs - I just needed to flow with it.  I determined that instead of fighting my inescapable exhaustion in the earlier part of the night, I would instead embrace it and institute the two sleep method in my life.  And I have been feeling better, more productive, and rested than before when I was trying to fight my sleepiness.

Since our acceptance of the two sleep, I've been regularly falling asleep (or more accurately passing out) around 9-9:30p and then naturally waking up again between 12:30-1am.  During this mid-sleep break, we've stayed awake from anywhere between a forty-five minutes to two hours, before getting into bed and sleeping again.  So far, I've been averaging about 6-7 hours of sleep and waking up refreshed with (what feels like at least) less resistance about getting out of bed.  weird, right?

Between the two sleeps recently I've done any or many of the following:  folded a load or two of laundry, put clean sheets on our bed, wiped down the kitchen, swept the floor, and planned out my week in my planner (jotting down notes and tasks to remember).  Brandon has tended to our wood-burning stove in the basement, taken out the garbage, and organized his own work stuff.  Last night, we looked over and discussed our monthly budget at 2am with sound mind and insightful planning - and more importantly a quiet house (while both kids slept peacefully upstairs).  We're like strange night-time elves!  And we have yet to turn to our electronics during the mid-sleep hours - also a strange feat in today's world.  Not by any declaration, but somehow our mid-sleep time feels too sacred to flip on the tv or open the laptop.  It's like a few magical unplugged hours.

Surprisingly, we haven't had any trouble falling back to sleep for the second sleep.  We just go about our normal bedtime routine (brush teeth, wash face, read) and easily go back to slumber until the morning.  What is wild to me is that I'm not getting more or less sleep than before, but that I feel more rested and productive on the two sleep than the stay-up-as-late-as-I-can-try-and-then-try-to-sleep-all-at-once method.

It's crazy, this two sleep thing -but it seems to be making a difference in my DST-adjustment life.  I was not only feeling really tired but also frustrated with myself - for being tired and for not being able to stay up after we put the kids to sleep.  As with all moments of acceptance, just allowing myself to fall asleep early in the night and having this time of quiet and productivity in the middle of the night that feels natural (and is?) has been a huge, welcome relief during this cold, dark winter nights.

Anyone else finding themselves naturally in a two sleep?  Or interested in trying it out?  I'd love to hear if it's as effective for you?  Are we really just strange night-time elves?  (hahha)

Our Spooky Halloween party for Preschoolers

We had our second annual Spooky Halloween party last week for our kids and a few of their friends.  Our kids love Halloween and all the 'spoooooooky' talk, but it always doesn't take much to go from spooky to scary for their ages either.  So we try to make our Halloween party fun, age appropriate, and not crossing into 'scary' territory.  

About two weeks before we had our party, I sent a Red Stamp text invite to the guests' parents.  Our party guests ranged from ages 1.5 to 4 years old and each child had at least one parent attend as well.

After pizza and snacks, we made our way to our first game of Pin the Nose on the Jack 'O Lantern. Earlier that afternoon, while I cut out the pumpkin face, eyes, and mouth; Grey was in charge of cutting out the noses, so he was proud to have helped get the game ready.  The kids were blindfolded with a handkerchief and spun around three times before trying to pin the nose.  This game was a huge hit and we played it several times in a row.  Even our < age 2 guests (Gem & Lila) enjoyed playing this game!

Our next game is a pinterest-halloween favorite, The Dangling Donut Game:  so we'd thought we'd give it a try.  With a menu of pizza, snacks, cookies, and loads of candy - the last thing I wanted to do was give the kids full size donuts to eat.  So we tied mini donuts to strings to have the kids try to eat through them on a string.  This game was a lot harder for them than we thought it would be and for a long while all the grown ups were cracking up while the kids just bopped the donuts off their faces over and over.  We might try this again when the kids are a little older (5+) but for now, it seemed a little tricky and an unnecessary addition to their already major sugar consumption for the evening.

Then it was time for our 'Witch's' Broomstick Limbo game.  We had the kids sneak under the broomstick for a little while and then moved to the much preferred preschool version - Reverse Limbo by having them jump over the broomstick instead.

Standard Limbo

Reverse Limbo (preschooler preferred)

Then it was on to cookie decorating in at the dining room table.  The kids and I had made a batch of sugar cookie dough the day before and made Halloween shape cut-outs to have them ready for the party.  I also used my Grandma's famous boiled icing recipe.  Each kid got five sugar cookies to decorate as they liked - which ranged from no decor (and just straight into their bellies, hah!) to a ton of icing and even more sprinkles.

We made our way back into the living room to jam to a Pandora Halloween station, turn off all the lights (except we kept the hall light on, keeping it just spooky!), and handed out glostick bracelets.  The kids ran and danced all around making spooky noises and screams.  A Spooky Glo-stick Dance Party = wild child mayhem fun!

Our last event of the night came straight out of our last year's Halloween party playbook.  We filled a styrofoam cooler up with water in the kitchen and lay a moving blanket underneath it.  First the parents get a crack at Bobbing for Apples and have you done this recently?  It is always significantly more difficult than I remember in my teenage years.  Serious water up my nose this  year.

The kids think its funny (and sort of cool still, yay!) to watch us grown-ups bob for apples.  Grey and Sophia tried to do the same and Grey actually grabbed an apple by it's stem with his teeth!  Soph went for the more traditional preschooler move of the secret hand-grab (hehheh).

But the real main event (as was last year) is the Apple Splashing game.  The kids maniacally grab apples from the water and slam them back in with huge splashes.  This is hilarious, long-lasting fun for preschoolers and toddlers.  If it was warmer, we would ideally play this game outside (as it make quite a water mess in the kitchen), but with our tile floor, clean up is fairly easy to just take towels or a mop to the floor.  This game also makes for a good final game, as children remove their costumes (happily as they are now wet) and put on their jammies for the car ride home (and hopefully to fall asleep before getting there)

The two main points to keep in mind for a successful Halloween party with very young children are:

1. Keep it short:  our party was only scheduled for an hour and half.  So we had to keep the party moving along.

2. Be flexible:  with varying abilities for this age group of kids, don't expect that every kid will be able to -or more importantly want to - participate in every (or any) activity.  And that's totally fine.  As long as kids are being safe - who cares if you have to skip a game or too and play something else again and again.

We had a great Spooky Preschool Halloween party again this year.  Thank you to my family that helped set up and to all of our spooky, funny little guests and their parents!